CARBON climbs into frame – confidently and surely. It’s a broad atom, and it looks at the audience, grins wide, and waves.
HYDROGEN climbs into frame. In comparison, it’s much smaller, skinnier, and shyer. CARBON smiles at it as it waves at the camera.
The two of them form the basic foundations of a lot of molecules – including Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons.
“Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons” zooms into frame.
Which is a mouthful! So, let me explain: in order to form Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, a group of CARBON atoms link together to form a two-dimensional, chainlink structure.
As the NARRATOR speaks, CARBON walks to the left of the screen to find another CARBON atom. They join hands. The camera tracks backwards to reveal that there are several other CARBON atoms, all of them connected by their hands.
And forming a “ring” around this molecule are HYDROGEN atoms.
CARBON waves HYDROGEN over, and the two of them join hands.
When this Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (or PAH) is hit with radiation from A SUN, the atoms come alive with energy.
A SUN, a round, easy-going thing, pulls a glob of glowing light from its head. It bounces the light up and down a bit, and then lobs it. The camera follows the ball of light until it hits the central CARBON atom on the head, then bounces out of screen.
After getting hit, CARBON blinks twice – and then grins wide. It begins vibrating and turning bright white. It passes from CARBON to CARBON, until it reaches the HYDROGEN atom.
When the energy reaches the ring of HYDROGEN atoms, they begin to shed infrared light.
The light eventually reaches our HYDROGEN atom. After standing still for a second, HYDROGEN begins to vibrate and turn white. It begins to jump up and down, still holding CARBON’s hand. Red light bounces off of it in waves.
This is called “hydrogen out-of-plane shifting,” but there are different ways PAH molecules can shed infrared light.
The camera tracks out, revealing a still shot of a glowing galaxy.
By measuring this infrared light’s interaction with space dust, or Interstellar Medium, and the age of the light, we can determine the distance of galaxies farther away from us with more accuracy than ever before.
The camera tracks out even further, then pans down, revealing JASON sitting at a telescope. He turns his chair around to write something in his notebook.
A little bit of dust and light means a lot of new information for us about our universe.
